Initial impression - tons of dialogue! Maybe it's the fever, the fermented honey cinnamon buns, or the stuff I'm taking for said fever, but it definitely felt like this chapter had a lot of dialogue in it. It's also possible that reading Ulysses and old Gothic novels has tuned my sense of proportion on this stuff out of whack. =P In any case, though, the chapter definitely dropped some great moments, and some plot advancement. Thoughts:

-Aweel, I will be totally honest, I did not follow the chain of logic of frame-ups all that deep. I got what I needed to, I think, and I don't think Blackjack delved too deep into it herself, so I'm not worried. But, yeah, it got confusing for me.

-Rainbow Dash being Mare Do Well! Yup, it was always a possibility. Didn't think of it myself, I will admit - the thread did - but it made a lot of sense. Worked a lot better than I thought it would after the Pinkie orb, let me tell you. Anyway, there's a definite high level of interconnectedness between her and Lighthooves and all - kinda makes me wish there'd been clues to her before, to be honest... which may exist and I've just missed them, this being PH and all. What I mean is, a lot of new information on Lighthooves and his plans just got added to the mix, somewhat without warning, and it changes things. I wish there was room to explore his relationship with Dash more, and with his brother. This area of the story honestly felt kinda rushed, if only in terms of pacing; I'm not sure how you could retain all the elements of it without taking a lot more time to explore it, however.

-Favorite part was probably - well, possibly, I may think of another - the Pinkie/Dash memory. It made sense, it was really, really great reading, and... well, honestly, it made me want to read a POV Pinkie Pie story of her, post-memory loss, trying to avert the apocalypse again, this time without being allowed the overdose of PTMs and, of course, failing. I don't know why, I'm sure it'd depress the hell out of me, but it would make for some great fatalistic story, I expect.

-Dawn fight scene. Pretty good and stuff! Like that she's not being set up as a big final boss fight thing, hate those unless there's a damn good reason for them (ie, "You kill my father, prepare to die," blademaster waltz shtick). It was pretty good, though. Nothing to write home about, I guess, but yeah. Pretty good! The soundproofing spell is always cool; lost some luster, I suppose, with use, but still - always cool. Suggests that the Remnant's working with Cognitum on some level, but that's been suggested before. I wonder if the Starkatteri offered themselves to Luna as spies, and fed misinformation to fuel the war. Thoughts.

-CANTERLOCK VOICE GO. Okay, well, that's a thing. Hmm. It's... too obviously Luna to be Luna, surely. The pony at the center of the maelstrom that Blackjack recognized, well, folks have theorized it's Luna before - maybe this is confirmation? But seriously... double fakeout, perhaps? Maybe even a triple? =P

-Boo can play, and win, at TicTacToe really well... fffffff PINKIE PIE! THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING, THE TWITCHES, THE RANDOMNESS, THE TICTACTOE SUCCESS! Recall her victories at tic tac toe on the mountain. Yes, this is all the evidence I need. :|

Well, that's it! If the tic tac toe things turns out true, I will be shocked and amazed and excited. Anyway, it was a fun chapter! Yup! Nothing too extraordinary, but it had some scenes I really enjoyed, and moved the plot on down the line. Probably will re-read it in the morning, but here're my sleepy thoughts, including a crazy conspiracy theory. :D Thanks for writing it, Somber, and thanks to Hinds 'n Bronode 'n now Swicked for editing duties!

I hope the government restarts soon, for your sake, and that this doesn't completely fuck you over. :(

EDIT: Error found, maybe? "STILL THY TONGUE AND PROVE THYSELF IF THY WISH PROTECTION FOR THY PROGENY." I have no idea what this should be, if anything different, but it sounded wrong. "Thee" maybe?

Initial impression - tons of dialogue! Maybe it's the fever, the fermented honey cinnamon buns, or the stuff I'm taking for said fever, but it definitely felt like this chapter had a lot of dialogue in it. It's also possible that reading Ulysses and old Gothic novels has tuned my sense of proportion on this stuff out of whack. =P In any case, though, the chapter definitely dropped some great moments, and some plot advancement. Thoughts:

-Aweel, I will be totally honest, I did not follow the chain of logic of frame-ups all that deep. I got what I needed to, I think, and I don't think Blackjack delved too deep into it herself, so I'm not worried. But, yeah, it got confusing for me.

-Rainbow Dash being Mare Do Well! Yup, it was always a possibility. Didn't think of it myself, I will admit - the thread did - but it made a lot of sense. Worked a lot better than I thought it would after the Pinkie orb, let me tell you. Anyway, there's a definite high level of interconnectedness between her and Lighthooves and all - kinda makes me wish there'd been clues to her before, to be honest... which may exist and I've just missed them, this being PH and all. What I mean is, a lot of new information on Lighthooves and his plans just got added to the mix, somewhat without warning, and it changes things. I wish there was room to explore his relationship with Dash more, and with his brother. This area of the story honestly felt kinda rushed, if only in terms of pacing; I'm not sure how you could retain all the elements of it without taking a lot more time to explore it, however.

-Favorite part was probably - well, possibly, I may think of another - the Pinkie/Dash memory. It made sense, it was really, really great reading, and... well, honestly, it made me want to read a POV Pinkie Pie story of her, post-memory loss, trying to avert the apocalypse again, this time without being allowed the overdose of PTMs and, of course, failing. I don't know why, I'm sure it'd depress the hell out of me, but it would make for some great fatalistic story, I expect.

-Dawn fight scene. Pretty good and stuff! Like that she's not being set up as a big final boss fight thing, hate those unless there's a damn good reason for them (ie, "You kill my father, prepare to die," blademaster waltz shtick). It was pretty good, though. Nothing to write home about, I guess, but yeah. Pretty good! The soundproofing spell is always cool; lost some luster, I suppose, with use, but still - always cool. Suggests that the Remnant's working with Cognitum on some level, but that's been suggested before. I wonder if the Starkatteri offered themselves to Luna as spies, and fed misinformation to fuel the war. Thoughts.

-CANTERLOCK VOICE GO. Okay, well, that's a thing. Hmm. It's... too obviously Luna to be Luna, surely. The pony at the center of the maelstrom that Blackjack recognized, well, folks have theorized it's Luna before - maybe this is confirmation? But seriously... double fakeout, perhaps? Maybe even a triple? =P

-Boo can play, and win, at TicTacToe really well... fffffff PINKIE PIE! THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING, THE TWITCHES, THE RANDOMNESS, THE TICTACTOE SUCCESS! Recall her victories at tic tac toe on the mountain. Yes, this is all the evidence I need. :|

Well, that's it! If the tic tac toe things turns out true, I will be shocked and amazed and excited. Anyway, it was a fun chapter! Yup! Nothing too extraordinary, but it had some scenes I really enjoyed, and moved the plot on down the line. Probably will re-read it in the morning, but here're my sleepy thoughts, including a crazy conspiracy theory. :D Thanks for writing it, Somber, and thanks to Hinds 'n Bronode 'n now Swicked for editing duties!

I hope the government restarts soon, for your sake, and that this doesn't completely fuck you over. :(

EDIT: Error found, maybe? "STILL THY TONGUE AND PROVE THYSELF IF THY WISH PROTECTION FOR THY PROGENY." I have no idea what this should be, if anything different, but it sounded wrong. "Thee" maybe?

Dawn fight interesting. Suddenly Canterlock. Now I'm thinking Cogitum is some kind of Brain Copy of Luna. I recall someone calling MDW as Ghoul RD and agreeing with that in a Skype chat or something. Pinkie is the Deus Ex Machina of storyline. Keep Blackjack away from buttons, as she somehow always screws up listening in to conversations with them around. Rampage is getting closer to snapping each chapter, and no time to focus on her. Maybe after dealing with Enclave but before Dawn?

So with this, all of the Mane 6 (and Spike) are accounted for:Twilight (Assimilated by Goddess)Pinkie (Nuked by Zebras -> Sniped by Psalm)Applejack (Died Naturally of old age in Stable 2)Rainbow Dash (Ghoulified MDW)Rarity (Pink Cloud exposure in Canterlot)Fluttershy (Joke polymorphed into a tree)Spike (Alive in his cave, going as Watcher)

*hugs Somber gently* I'm sorry the background check is keeping you from getting a job... I really hope things will be okay... just try to take care of yourself, and please try not to give up.Thank you for creating Project Horizons, sir, and for taking the time to devote to it even in the midst of such a hostile situation. I wish I could show my appreciation more...

Thank you Hinds, Bronode, and swicked for your help and hard work in editing it.

This was an incredibly intense chapter... probably the only good thing to come out of today for me.

initial thoughts:

I cried quite a bit during the memory orb and the ending, I'm not sure if saying they were "pretty intense" scenes would really be strong enough, but my brain is kinda shorting out right now, so yeah... definitely intense.

Pinkie's little off-hand "Oh. And congratulations." has me a bit nervous for what it could possibly mean.

Blackjack's use of the door spell was fantastic.

And I love that P-21 has his own squad of fans, that really made me smile.

I'm sure there tons of other things I wanted to say, but my head feels like it's slowly melting again, so I'll just promise to have my full comments in as soon as I can, and wish you all goodnight.Like that, yeah.

One hour ago: Me - "Oooh, a new chapter. I wonder who Mare Do Well is."

Now: Me - "...Heeheehee..."

Spoiler:

RAINBOW DASH! RAINBOW DASH! RAINBOW DASH! Holy flying monkey nuts! I didn't see that coming. I mean I thought about it as a joke, but then that happens and I love it. Somber, you're a genius and a magnificent writer. I'm sorry though that the stupid US "government" are being nits. You deserve a job.

I loved the rest of the chapter from beginning to end. Pinkie's memory orb was quite sad but the nod to Murky was great. I also loved the Star Wars nod.

In regards to Cognitum:

Spoiler:

My personal theory is that Cognitum is Mr. Horse fused with the Tokomare, though why Cognitum is talking like Luna is unknown? Maybe Horse copied Luna's personality or something.

Valikdu wrote:Um... The "couple" in the AN isn't literally two, right?Someone please reassure me.I'm about to have a panic attack here due to my literary super-drug running out sooner then I thought it would.

No no no! Have no worries there. The plan is for rather more than two chapters, and you know how these things have tended to grow.

“The hell I can’t!” Rainbow Dash retorted. “I can think of half dozen ways to take him out on my own. A dozen more with my ministry.”

Should be:"half a dozen ways"

“No surprise with a names like that,” Rainbow Dash asked, then frowned.

Should be:"with a name"

"She lifted it with one hoof rear hoof."

Should be either:"one hoof" or "one rear hoof", I think.

"These were shot in the head by a high-caliber bullets."Should probably just lose the word "a".

"She immediately beamed and extracted a second jar. “Precogazine! Come to me, my minty beauties,” she said, shaking some into my mouth."

While the imagery this gave me was humorous, it should probably say "her mouth".

“I think that I’m starting to get why Glory gets a headache when 99 and sex comes up together.”

I can't really talk when it comes to grammar, but I think that should be "come up together", as there are two subjects. of course, this could be just be how Scotch talks.

"Scotch Tape tapped her hoof impatiently, and he sighed."

From context I think the "he" is P21, but Scotch is the current subject, so I believe it should say, "and P21" sighed... or perhaps it was simply meant to be "she".

"We are getting word that the both Councilor Stargazer"

It looks like the word "the" shouldn't be there.

"Scotch Tape and Monkeywrench worked to quickly to clear the Enclave block on my Pipbuck"

I suppose "worked to quickly to" should either be "worked quickly to clear", or "worked to quickly clear".

"Hell yeah. I wasn’t going to be like Rarity and sit behind a desk or hold board meeting like Applejack"

Board meeting should probably be plural here.

"We’re going with the ‘Save Glory and then get the Neighvarro the hell out of here"

I suppose this should be get the hell out of Neighvarro, or just get the hell out of here?

"Suddenly everything I needed to saw was dribbling out of my head"

And then I ruined a literary moment for myself by pausing to try to make some sort of terrible lumberjack pun.

Ah, thank you.

SuckAtNaming wrote:From context I think the "he" is P21, but Scotch is the current subject, so I believe it should say, "and P21" sighed... or perhaps it was simply meant to be "she".

No, actually, this is correct; while in general I have something of a dislike for gendered pronouns, this is one example of an instance where they're useful. The pronoun uses the last valid antecedent, which is here, due to Scotch being female, P-21.

SuckAtNaming wrote:I suppose this should be get the hell out of Neighvarro, or just get the hell out of here?

No, this is an instance of Blackjack using "the Neighvarro" to mean "the Neighvarro pegasi". She's done it before.

edit: Ah, finally got the tags in this post fixed.

Mr. Snrub wrote:<image>

...…Why did you even bother to post that here, Mr. Snrub? I mean, first criticism: the author of this post appears to have not actually read anything written by swicked.…Is this actually some example of humor running into Poe's Law? It is rather too ridiculous to take seriously.(Though I do note that BTCOTAMIDFHA seems to have a relatively high opinion of Bronode, who is ordered to be f***** only for liking the story as opposed of the additional f****** which Somber and I are told to have or BTCOTAMIDFHA's apparent extreme hatred of swicked. :))

I should've realised the Roam incident might've been connected to Jetstream. But Rainbow Dash didn't kill Jetstream. She killed an apparent male traitor. Oh, whoa! What if Jetstream went off to Roam and actually set off a megaspell, thus kicking off the zebras' retaliation!

They posted some over-the-top 4chan hate, though I don't know why. It was so ridiculous that I'm skeptical that anyone would take it seriously while at the same time being too hateful and uncreative to be effective humor.

O. Hinds wrote:No, actually, this is correct; while in general I have something of a dislike for gendered pronouns, this is one example of an instance where they're useful. The pronoun uses the last valid antecedent, which is here, due to Scotch being female, P-21.

Good to know. Albeit my native language, and regardless of me knowing the occasional big word, English really isn't my forte; or at least not in regards to knowing and following the proper rules of grammar. I'm much more accustomed to programming language grammar, where if you mess up, things don't compile and angry red error messages show up... but then again, that's kind of there in spell/grammar checker.

O. Hinds wrote:No, this is an instance of Blackjack using "the Neighvarro" to mean "the Neighvarro pegasi". She's done it before.

Ah; you are correct sir. My bad; for some reason I just didn't process it that way. Anyway; I figured I might as well post these things now that I created an account.

As I'm new to this thread, I'd also just like to thank Somber and the editing team for making a great story that is far better than many things I have paid to read.

And, yeah, English is, to put it politely, rather complex where grammar is concerned. I expect that I'd hate having to learn it if it wasn't my native language, and I'm constantly amazed by the quality of the English of various nonnative speakers. I am, sadly, a monoglot; I did pretty well in my two semesters of Mandarin, but by now I think that I might be able to say "I don't speak much Mandarin" (Wo bu gong hen zhongwen). Probably sounds horribly mangled, though.

“You need to think like a surfacer here, Blackjack, not a stable pony or cloud dweller,” Rampage replied. “You have side A and side B. You don’t want them to fight each and hurt the sane ponies that don’t want to be involved, right? So kill a side. Hell, kill both sides! Then we can set you up as ruler of Thunderhead, Glory can be your lovely concubine, P-21 your master of intelligence, and me your brutal enforcer. It’ll be a blast.”

This quote seems all too appropriate given that this image popped up in the Fanart thread a few days ago.

O. Hinds wrote:I expect that I'd hate having to learn it if it wasn't my native language

*Shrug*I can't say that I've ever put any grand efforts into learning it. Well, I did okay at the school and college courses, which were just the standard ones. After that, I've just... well, read things and listened to things, all for entertainment. I guess that, after a certain threshold, it just rubs off on you.

And, yeah, English is, to put it politely, rather complex where grammar is concerned. I expect that I'd hate having to learn it if it wasn't my native language, and I'm constantly amazed by the quality of the English of various nonnative speakers. I am, sadly, a monoglot; I did pretty well in my two semesters of Mandarin, but by now I think that I might be able to say "I don't speak much Mandarin" (Wo bu gong hen zhongwen). Probably sounds horribly mangled, though.

Just in case you misread me, I am a native English speaker; which probably only makes me worse at it.

I took two semesters of Spanish in college and I can't really say I speak it either. I also sometimes rewrite work emails several times to try to simplify my language for the sake of non-native speakers; though I'm not sure they need it. They seem to have more trouble with spoken than written language. As a software developer, I work with a fair deal of Chinese and Indian immigrates... I really do not envy the task of them understanding me; especially because it's my understanding there's a preference towards teaching the British flavor of proper English in many schools, adding another layer of confusion no doubt given my locale; and I tend to use overly large words where smaller will do. I also tend to write really long sentences and pepper them with semicolons :). That said, they manage just fine... I really doubt I could if I were the one learning their languages.

Anyway; I am happy to help in some measure. I consider myself a pour critic because when I am reading, I want to just roll with the story and lose myself in it rather than question it.

“You need to think like a surfacer here, Blackjack, not a stable pony or cloud dweller,” Rampage replied. “You have side A and side B. You don’t want them to fight each and hurt the sane ponies that don’t want to be involved, right? So kill a side. Hell, kill both sides! Then we can set you up as ruler of Thunderhead, Glory can be your lovely concubine, P-21 your master of intelligence, and me your brutal enforcer. It’ll be a blast.”

This quote seems all too appropriate given that this image popped up in the Fanart thread a few days ago.

“You need to think like a surfacer here, Blackjack, not a stable pony or cloud dweller,” Rampage replied. “You have side A and side B. You don’t want them to fight each and hurt the sane ponies that don’t want to be involved, right? So kill a side. Hell, kill both sides! Then we can set you up as ruler of Thunderhead, Glory can be your lovely concubine, P-21 your master of intelligence, and me your brutal enforcer. It’ll be a blast.”

This quote seems all too appropriate given that this image popped up in the Fanart thread a few days ago.

Image:

Appropriate? It was inspired!

That's awesome. Though I wonder where the artist got the idea of Dictator Blackjack.